Biogenous ooze

For marine sediment to receive this classification, it must be composed of more than 30% skeletal material which also includes teeth and shells.

[1] In an area in which biogenous is the dominant sediment type, the composition of microorganisms in that location determines to which category it is classified.

The primary types of microorganisms used to classify ooze are radiolarians and diatoms (siliceous), and coccolithophores and foraminifera (calcareous).

[1] Siliceous oozes lean towards dissolution in warmer waters with lower pressures, meaning they are best preserved in deep ocean.

[3] Calcareous sediments are more common in the deep ocean, comprising about half of its surface area.

The temperature dependence also means that calcareous ooze is more likely to be present in warmer waters, which also leads to its dominance in shallow areas surrounding tropical and subtropical islands that do not have much terrigenous sediment runoff.

In the fields of paleoceanography and paleoclimatology, biogenous ooze and other pelagic sediments can be collected form the seafloor and used to reconstruct Earth's climate for the last 100 million years.